One of the fastest growing and most profitable segments of the food service industry involves the preparation of precooked, packaged meat products such as chicken parts, beef and pork products for sale on retail and institutional levels. The market for such products has increased dramatically in the areas of home retail sales and restaurant sales as more and more people have less time to go to the trouble of preparing and cooking fresh meats, and thus find it much easier and faster to use precooked foods which require substantially less cooking/preparation/heating time. Additionally, for restaurants, the use of such precooked meat products yields faster service of orders, and the uniformity of these products enables restaurants to serve generally uniform sized portions. Also, since at the consumer level, the cooking time of precooked meat products is less than that for fresh or uncooked products, restaurants do not need as extensive cooking equipment to prepare and serve a significant volume of meals.
A significant problem that arises with packaged meat products, however, is the danger of contamination of such meat products due to bacteria. If not properly prepared and adequately cooked before being packaged, such food products can pass bacterial contaminates onto the end users, posing a serious health risk to the end users. This health risk has become especially prominent in the last several years in light of recent well publicized instances of "E-coli" and salmonella poisoning, etc. due to contaminated meat products being served at restaurants across the United States.
Conventional industrial food cooking processes have focused on the cooking of such meat products at relatively high temperatures in order to speed the cooking time required to cook the products. Such rapid cooking of the meat products under relatively high heat, however, creates much less attractive products often having blood spots or other discolorations therein. Further, when cooking the products rapidly, there is still a danger of the products not being thoroughly cooked, especially through the bones of the product, which contain blood, marrow, etc., where bacteria can take hold. In addition, rapid cooking of the products at high heat further tends to dry out the products making the products tougher and adversely affects their taste.
An example of a conventional cooking system for meat parts, is taught by U.S. Reissue Patent No. 33,510 of Williams. Williams teaches a steam cooking system in which products of substantially uniform size and weight, such as chicken parts, are sprayed with a water spray and thereafter are passed into a steam chamber in which the parts are exposed to an environment of 100% humidity at approximately 100.degree. C. (212.degree. F.). The principal purpose of the system of Williams is to cook the uniformly sized meat parts at an increased heat and moisture while attempting to retain the juices and flavor of the product. Williams, however, does not appear to address the problem of reducing the contamination of the products as they are moved through the cooking apparatus. In fact, Williams uses steam partially generated from the heating of water collected at the bottom of the cooking apparatus. Such collected water contains collected drippings and bacterial contaminates secreted from the parts as they are cooked. As this water is heated and becomes steam that is directed throughout the cooking apparatus, the parts are continually exposed to potentially contaminating steam.
In addition, the products or parts enter the cooking apparatus of Williams at the top thereof so that the raw parts are at the top of the cooking apparatus, which raw parts tend to secrete and drip matter, including contaminating matter, downwardly onto the previously cooked products, at the lower areas of the cooking apparatus. The system shown in Williams also requires an additional processing step of segregating the meat parts to parts of relatively uniform size and shape before such parts can be moved through and cooked in the cooking apparatus of Williams. After the products have been cooked, the cooked products apparently then must be desegregated prior to packaging, for example for the packaging of whole birds in "eight piece packs".
Systems such as Williams, which are designed to provide faster cooking of the meat parts in the processing plant, thus tend to require additional processing steps and cannot uniformly cook a variety of different size and weight products at the same time. Additionally, most conventional cooking processes are not specifically directed or designed for ensuring that bacterial contaminates contained in the meat parts are substantially reduced or eliminated prior to packaging and sale to consumers. As a result, while cooking times for such precooked, prepackaged meat products are generally reduced over the cooking times for fresh products, it typically is still necessary for the end consumer to cook the products for a significantly long time to ensure that the products are thoroughly cooked throughout to reduce or eliminate any contamination therein.
Accordingly, it can be seen that beyond traditional methods of precooking product, a need exists for a process of pasteurizing and prepackaging meat products, in which the potential for bacterial contamination has been substantially reduced and/or eliminated and which provides a safe, healthy meat product that can be rapidly cooked by an end consumer and which, unlike precooked product, retains moisture and quality of flavor and appearance.